Winter Pots of Polyanthus

Polyanthus in a Pot

Over winter my garden sleeps underneath a blanket coloured drab green and brown. There's not usually any snow, by the way. The few colours out there are difficult to spot. Lots of polyanthus plants in pots are the answer! And the trick is to put them where they'll be noticed.

The house patio and the house decking are the first places to check out. Polyanthus plants come in an extraordinary variety of bright colours, and by mid-winter the nurseries are usually offering them at sale price. Aha! For a compulsive rescuer trying to moderate her plant spending this is just brilliant.

I also put them alongside paths and thoroughfares that are well-trodden in winter. The pots themselves are often just unassuming plastic ones, spares from my glasshouse.

Winter Flowers -Polyanthus

Eye-Catching...

Those warm yellows and blushing pinks are eye-catching on a chill winter's day. More subtle are those with smoky blue flowers, well worth peering at up close. The nurseries sensibly offer punnets with the enticing labels : 'rose shades', 'pink shades', 'blue shades' and so on.

The theory is to attempt some colour co-ordination, but after one season I tend to get my plants all mixed up (they spend the summer tucked away behind the glass-house). Never mind. Mixed pots of garish clashes of colour are even harder to ignore!

OK. I'm writing this mid-winter, on a bleak four degrees (Celsius) day, and I'm suddenly inspired. Off I go to the nursery right now to see what needs rescuing, hee hee. Poor little darlings...